A Mixed Bag: How The Infrastructure Bill Will Impact Municipal Broadband Networks – Episode 469 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Community Broadband Bits Podcast

On this week’s episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, Christopher Mitchell and ILSR Senior Reporter, Editor, and Researcher Sean Gonsalves talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate today — the episode was recorded last week, before the vote.

While the bill does not eradicate barriers across the 17 states still restricting municipalities from building their own networks, it does ensure that $42 billion in broadband infrastructure funds go directly to the states instead of the FCC. The two discuss how increasing the definition of broadband from 25/3 Mbps (Megabits per second) to 100/20 Mbps is long overdue, and frankly, not enough to future-proof networks. The two hypothesize that the new definition will ultimately lead to a need for more investment down the road.

Gonsalves also recaps some of his recent coverage of expanding networks in Ocala, Florida and Fairlawn, Ohio. You can read more of Sean Gonsalves work here.

This show is 36 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

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Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.